NotJayTabb

Thanks, that sounds like something I'd be very interested in. I should say for context that I'm having to play catch up with a lot of wrestling, in effect I took a year off from actively watching following Speaking Out. I've been working through Dynamites since signing up for AEW Plus 2 months ago, and Dustin is one of the guys I still get excited for.

I think whether or not he feels like one of the best guys in AEW doesn't just depend on Dustin but the rest of the roster as well. For example, I know from your posts that there are several workers there you're much higher on than I am, who I don't enjoy watching as much as DR, plus Dustin has the benefit of showing up less often, so it's a bigger treat when he does.

Even Black Reign had glimmers of classic Dustin. His first PPV match in the gimmick, where he just beats the shit out of Chris Harris before getting DQd, is surprisingly entertaining, even if it's barely a match. His offence still looks pretty good, even if his motivation is clearly lacking. I'm in a position where I'm playing catch up with AEW, but every time Dustin shows up, he feels like one of the best guys there. The Rampage match against Black was really good, and Dustin looked great. For "man in his 50s vs ex WWE guy", it smoked Suzuki/Ambrose from the same show.

Yeah, Shelley feels like a great choice of touring champion, he's someone who I'm interested in seeing against almost all of the guys who regularly wrestle in the IWTV promotions. He feels like he's similar to the early champions like Gresham or Tracy Williams, rather than less rounded wrestlers like Cassidy and Warhorse. Giving Warhorse 500+ days with the title was too long.

Neither guy has a chance of making my list. But I voted Shawn because the Rockers were great.

I thought no-mask heel Rey Jr was an irritating little prick, which is incredible for someone who's such a purely likeable babyface. I see his ability to piss me off as a definite positive for him

He dropped a bigger easter egg by saying Daniel and David were on their way, who are real life neighbours/friends The Revival. That's a deep inside cut.

Everyone in the world is second best to Brandon Cutler?

Back at the 2020 Royal Rumble, when Daniel Bryan did the near impossible by having a good strap match with a bad wrestler who no-sells everything, I did sit and wonder who else would have had a good match in that situation. My list was pretty short: Hogan (because he'd have sold the beatdown well, then hulked up and squashed the Fiend) and Bret. I thought back to Bret's matches against the likes of Yoko, Taker and Andre, where he was a smaller wrestler facing guys who would be able to withstand more of his offence, and how he still wrestled logical good matches against them. Bret had a good match in 1992 against Kamala, who was a limited big man, by selling well and making logical comebacks (as I recall, he stamped on Kamala's barefeet, which more wrestlers should have done). I think he'd have dragged something out of the Fiend

Gage is interesting, because he's had a long career, and always been at worst watchable, but I'd not consider him for something like this. I don't think he's ever been top 5 in the world at any point, heck I never thought he was top 5 in just CZW when I was watching in the early 2000s. Nowadays, I agree that he's managed to build himself an aura, and I'm glad he's seemingly turned his life around, but he's probably at his peak right now and I'd not put him top 50 in the world. Good to see him nominated, not making my list.

Its worthy remembering that AEW isn't Tony Khan's only role. He's still director of football at Fulham and I'm sure he has a role at his American football team too. His current workload would be huge if it was just AEW, and while I'm more than happy for him to neglect his Fulham duties (especially if they lose at the weekend ), it feels like he's taking on a lot

She's had a couple of dark matches on the main roster with Aaliyah, Dakota and Catanzaro, so she might be main roster bound

Tony Khan has tweeted that tonight will be a celebration of Brodie Lee, and I've got faith they'll do a really good job of it. Matt Sydal teaming with Dante Martin is interesting, could be a good team. I know Darius Martin is injured, I assume the same is true of Mike Sydal? Be interesting to see how Jungle Boy copes with the unusual situation of being the more physically imposing guy in his match.

Thought the Bearcat Lee squash was really fun. He wrestled like a proper big guy, felt like a serious contender even though he was only beating a comedy jobber.

Think it's interesting he's been nominated, but Dash Wilder hasn't. The Revival feels like one of those teams who I always think of as a unit rather than two wrestlers, so it's hard for me to pick one of them over the other in terms of a list like this. I kinda want to check out Dash's run on Main Event when Dawson was injured, see how he coped in a singles setting, but I'm not ruling out either guy

I've not watched huge amounts of AEW in the past, so when I watched the Danielson match, where Roberts sounded like a foghorn trying to spit out the words "American Dragon" I immediately remembered how awful he is. Surely they could book Dave Penzer for the same price.

Brandi giving Black the double finger was hilariously bad. I howled with laughter at that

I think things like the Kingston love come around to timing. I signed up for the CHIKARA streaming deal in 2016, and I reckon if I'd signed up one year earlier that I'd have found room for Kingston, Quack and Cesaro on my GWE16 ballot. I think stuff like IWTV has helped with availability of footage too. I always liked Kingston, but he was someone I'd see wrestle maybe once or twice a year, because I was rarely dropping £10-15 on one off indy shows. When you've suddenly got access to hours of indy footage for a bargain price, and can see someone like Eddie having good matches regularly for multiple promotions, it enhances their case.

Bron Breakker vs Ridge Holland feels like a Takeover worthy singles match, assuming Takeovers still exist

The Danielson stuff I'm really excited about is when he'll be given free reign to go on Dynamite or even Dark, and work surprisingly good matches with people like Sonny Kiss, Alex Reynolds or Billy Gunn's kids. Feels like the kind of thing he'll want to do

The ending of Swole/Katch was especially yikes, you could see they tried to edit around it

Looking back over this thread, and there wasn't a lot of love for Randy Orton for GWE16, a guy who I ended up putting somewhere in the mid-50s. I think he might rank even higher for me now, he's just a remarkably consistent professional wrestler, who is also capable of some real highs. Things like his 2011, where he had a great series with Christian before selflessly getting dominated by Hall of Pain Mark Henry to kick off Henry's title run. Like 2013, where he had a great series of matches with Daniel Bryan where he really amped up his vicious side and was one of Bryan's best opponents during his WWE career. Even a few years back, when he was booked in a HIAC match with Jeff Hardy that no-one was really excited about, but ended up being really gnarly and having that memorable moment when he contorted Jeff's extended earlobes with a screwdriver. He's not got many lows in ring (bar any time he feuded with Bray Wyatt, but the list of talented people dragged down to Wyatt's level is huge), and he's still putting in good work to this day - the Lashley match the other week was very good.

Very much looking forward to this, it's as good a line-up of TV wrestling as I've seen in a long time. Not going to watch it live - there's very few wrestling shows that can convince me to stay up until the early hours on a work night - but I'm at least going to try and go into the show spoiler free tomorrow. Very curious about the FTR/Sting match and how it will be worked, and the women's title and MJF matches should both be good. The main event feels like it could join the Fiend strap match in being a real gold star in Danielson's GOAT GWE candidacy for me. If he gets a good match out of a wrestler who's in-ring quirks render him near unwatchable to me, then he's going to be hard to budge as the greatest.

In fairness, he'd not be doing much more in AEW at the moment following his COVID/heart scare issues. In the long run, yeah he'd probably fare better, but I'm guessing his current role is all about getting him back in ring shape, trying out a few ideas and getting him ready for a proper return.

I'm guessing this is a reference to Bearcat Wright, who was one of the first African-American heavyweight champions. It's not a bad sounding nickname, so to me it depends who chose it for Keith Lee. If Lee chose it himself, then that's pretty cool. If it's just Vince and Pritchard going "here's a reference to another black wrestler", then not so much.